Errol Flynn is on top late-career form here as a British naval officer who gets involved with beautiful buccaneer Maureen O'Hara in a Madagascan pirate stronghold ruled over by the scowling Anthony Quinn. This rollicking costume adventure is generally good fun, with rich 1950s Technicolor that's particularly well deployed, giving O'Hara's red hair and green eyes an even greater lustre. Though the credited director is George Sherman, it is a little-known fact that Douglas Sirk actually undertook most of the work behind the camera. Remade, utterly pointlessly, as The King's Pirate with Doug McClure, using footage from this original.

In the 18th century, the pirates of Madagascar, lords of the Republic of Libertatia and masters of the Indian Ocean, live in an impregnable natural fortress, killing, robbing and plundering with impunity, so the British Navy hatches a daring plan to destroy them.